Paper Bag Records
Sally Shapiro’s Remix Romance — a track-by-track remix of her breakthrough album Disco Romance — is a ringing success. Considering most albums of this sort are warmed-over unnecessary garbage the very fact that Remix is listenable is enough to separate it from many of its peers like Stars’ Do You Trust Your Friends? or Death From Above 1979’s Romance Bloody Romance . Luckily the album is more than just listenable — it’s legitimately worthwhile and acts as an adequate companion piece to its source material.
It helps that Shapiro’s snowy disco-pop and featherweight vocals lend themselves nicely to reinterpretation but it’s the quality of the ideas of the remixers that keep Disco Romance from becoming the typical train wreck. Holy Fuck and Woodhands tackle “Find My Soul” and “Anorak Christmas” respectively and both imbue Shapiro’s already spatial disco with an even more ethereal quality conjuring up images of a dance floor surrounded by frozen tundra the few people swaying on it completely unaware of each other. Skatebård takes a different approach loading “He Keeps Me Alive” with a seething house beat and upbeat synthesizers that create an effective juxtaposition with Shapiro’s lovelorn lyrics while The Cansecos steal a few tricks from the Bee Gees transforming “Hold Me So Tight” into a song that boldly struts along instead of Shapiro’s usual wallflower tiptoe.
Like any remix project Remix Romance contains the odd head-scratcher but unlike most remix projects it sounds like an actual album rather than a series of misguided cash-ins. For this alone it should be applauded. That it’s an album worth listening to in its own right is a welcome bonus.
